worst. semester. ever.

I really fucked up this semester.

I was lazy and unmotivated. I often spent my days lying in bed watching movies instead of studying or doing homework. I saved most assignments until the last minute. I skipped more classes than I should have.

I don't know what happened. I didn't have a particularly emotionally taxing semester. I had some stressful money problems, but what's new. The past four months are a hazy blur of bad movies, ennui, and boredom.

I had a teacher in high school who said it was really dangerous when smart kids got bored. Well, that's exactly what happened. I'm a smart kid who got bored. Maybe that's the wrong word - disillusioned might be better. Since summer started, I've really just started hating everything more. Sure, I still have optimistic times, and I'm a generally happy person in daily life, but when I really sit down and think about things, I just get pissed off.

I hate America. There will be posts to come on the many reasons for this.

I hate money. It runs the world, and I never have any.

I hate conservative douchers who deny their privilege and love oppression. I hate racists and sexists and homophobes and misogynists and classists and the willfully ignorant.

I hate capitalism.

I hate my job. I hate Oklahoma. I hate that I live 1000 miles away from everyone I love. I hate that I've lived in this town for over two years, and although I have people to have fun with, I don't feel like I have a single real friend.

I hate my tiny, cold apartment.

So here I am. Overcome with a feeling of ennui, with a side of slight depression and boredom. I can't wait to go home to my parents' house and lie on a couch all day, drinking tea and watching cable.

Next semester will be a fresh start for me. I'm going to work harder and do better. At everything.

this too shall pass

My truck has been fixed, and it didn't even cost as much as I thought it would. Now, the ride is smooth and noiseless (well, except for the Mumford & Sons in the CD player). I know that I can get home from work without having to walk or grovel to the few friends who are still in town. Thank goodness.

So here I am, happy and relieved. I'm thinking about the post I wrote yesterday. I was so depressed and dramatic. When I have money problems, I just feel so hopeless. The problem seems to be so much bigger than life, and I can never see an end to how hard it is. Everything feels so scary, and I panic.

But then - just like that - everything is resolved. The guys at the auto shop fixed our sweet Roxanne, and it wasn't very expensive to fix. All the stress and anguish I felt yesterday just drifted off of me like smoke.

It reminds me of what my parents always say to me when I'm having a hard time with something.

"This too shall pass."

I can't even count how many times I've heard that phrase from my mom and dad. Even my siblings say it to me sometimes, and I've caught myself repeating it to others as well. It's one of those homegrown sayings that just stick with you - like my dad telling me every day before school when I was growing up, "Make it a good day."

My parents are so supportive of me, and so wise. If I'm struggling, the first phone call I make is home. Just so someone else can tell me what I'm too panicked to tell myself: "This too shall pass."

Those four words never feel more true than right after a crisis has been managed or resolved. And now, as I breathe a sigh of relief, I know for sure that everything in life does pass. For now, I am calm. I hope it lasts.

But like the bad times, the good times, too, shall pass. I'll just have to wait and see what comes next.

well, shit.

I was planning to post about Christmas. I would have talked about my boyfriend's work Christmas party, and how it was so different from mine (his employer is a huge electronics supplier; mine is a nonprofit). I would have talked about our little Christmas celebration, a day of watching movies in our apartment and being too hungover to function.

But I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm too pissed off. I'm pissed and depressed. I'm in that mood where everything makes me cry, and I want to hit someone.

There I am, breaking down in inappropriate places! (this week's edition: the student union!)

Seriously though. Since Damien and I moved back to Norman this summer, I feel like it's been one disaster after another. And we're broke kids who don't have rich parents to bail us out, so we're basically just fucked.

We're having truck problems again. Damien has this 1999 red Ford Ranger. We call her Roxanne. She is awesome and I love her. I love driving her around, listening to music, smoking cigarettes, and just being a cute girl in a cute little truck. She got us all the way to Oklahoma from Wisconsin safely, and that is so great. But she's had her share of problems.

Lately, the left side of the truck has been emitting these awful noises that sound like everything is just going to fall apart at any moment. Seriously. I feared for my life today as I drove it to the auto shop.

Anyway, to wrap all this up, now the truck is in the shop. I'll be taking the bus to work, and probably walking home. Just like I will be for the next three days. Who knows how much it will cost to fix... and who knows if we can even afford it. We are seriously broke right now. And if it's more than a certain amount of money, it has to come out of my paycheck, which I was counting on to be able to buy Christmas presents for my family and have some spending money while I'm home.

I hate to whine. I know things could be worse. I know that, all things considered, I've got it pretty good. But, you know, I just want life to be calm and not so stressful all the time. It's like as soon as we take care of one catastrophe, another one is never too far behind.

I'm just tired of being so painfully aware of how much everything sucks.

hooray!!

i'm done with finals!

i only had one final to take, though, and it was in my Development of Popular Music 1959-1979 class. SUPER EASY AND FUN!

i also had a final paper due last week in my Men & Masculinity class. my topic was gender performance in male musicians in the 50s and 60s. i wrote it the night before it was due; more specifically, the morning that it was due. i think i wrote my first

sentence at around 3 a.m.? nine hours later, i turned that sucker in! and i found out the other night that i got a 95 on it. BUNG!

i'm so glad this semester is over, and that it ended on a pretty good note. the past few months have not been good academically for me. i've just been super lazy this semester, choosing to lie around and watch movies for hours instead of getting a jump on my work. i turned 21 and spent too much money on booze and not enough time on being a good student. i had to drop a class, i'm going to end up getting B's in classes that should be A's, and i didn't contribute nearly anything to the newspaper.

i see next semester as a fresh start. it's going to have to be - i'm taking a pretty challenging 15 class hours, working about 15 hours a week, and probably writing more for the paper. hopefully the added responsibility will force me to stay on top of things. that's usually how it works for me, anyway.

so, here i sit at cafe plaid, catching up on the internet and enjoying some fantastic coffee and pumpkin bread.

some more exciting news: this week i cut my bangs and dyed my hair. anyone who's known me for a while knows i don't change my hair much. since i was about 17, my hair has looked like this:

Long, straight, brown, with longish sideswept bangs.

But on tuesday, i was bored. and my bangs were feeling... scraggly. so i got out of the shower and - snip! - made my first cut. it was really short. so, okay, i have short bangs now!

I freaked out for about half an hour. they seemed SO SHORT and goofy. I texted my mom a picture and said "OH GOD I JUST CUT MY BANGS, ARE THEY OKAY?? I DONT KNOW IF I LIKE IT!!" she was, of course, supportive. "it's trendy! put on some red lipstick and you'll look like Katy Perry."

Katy Perry, eh? Not sure that's what I was going for. But i guess it works. so then i waited for my boyfriend to come home. i was sure he'd hate it.

but he came home and said it was sexy, like bettie page. oooh!

he suggested i dye it black to go with the short bangs. i've been wanting to dye my hair black for a few months now; i did it last spring and i loved it, so i wanted to try again. so, here we are today...

i love it. most of the feedback i've gotten has been really positive. people at the Y are hilarious ... some of the old men who come in every day have come up with all kinds of comparisons. Cleopatra, a Beatle, Morticia Addams, "my little Egyptian princess" is how one guy in particular put it.

so that's my life right now. more to come!

period piece

Things I like about my Diva Cup:

• no garbage (saving the environment one ounce of menstrual blood at a time!)
• don't have to spend money on tampons

Things I don't like about my Diva Cup:

• digging in my vagina for five minutes trying to pull it out
• that sick squelching sound it makes when I put it in
• the fact that a mishap makes my bathroom look like Carrie just walked through it
• all that damn hand-washing

Am I going to keep using it? Yes. I just hope I get accustomed to it. I used to hate using tampons too, so I'm optimistic. At least I'm getting to know myself very, VERY intimately.

I'm really glad this is my second post on this blog. Readers, you'll be getting to know me very intimately too, it seems! :)

In other news... I have a 6-8 page research paper due tomorrow. Have I started it? Nahh.

Love,

Annika

hello there

I made this blog because I have a lot of ideas and opinions about a lot of different things, and I'd rather organize them in one place than have countless "niche" blogs.

Over the years, I've had lots of blogs. I've had LiveJournal, Xanga, GreatestJournal, Blogger ... the list goes on and on. Currently I use Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. I also have a music blog that I try to update on a fairly regular basis.

As an aspiring writer, I know how important it is to have an online presence, and put writing somewhere, and write on a daily basis. This is my attempt to do just that.

A little about me: I'm a Green Bay, WI native currently located in Norman, OK. I attend the University of Oklahoma; currently I'm a junior majoring in Professional Writing with minors in Spanish and Women's and Gender Studies. I live with my boyfriend, Damien, and our cat, John, in a very small apartment. I'm a YMCA lifeguard.

My main interests are: politics, feminism, music, film, television, pop culture, journalism. Not necessarily in that order. I also enjoy lots of other things like tattoos, the Internet, kittens, and the Green Bay Packers.

New post soon,

Annika